Missing testimony from the recording of Arnold Stephen Barber’s felony witness tampering trial is just that - missing.

Adair County Circuit Clerk Linda Decker said during a meeting with local media Thursday the recording of last June’s trial has approximately 30-35 minutes of silence when the questions and testimony of Barber should be present.

Barber had been convicted last June of two counts of felony witness tampering and sentenced to five years in prison before his successful appeal. The appellate judges ruled Tuesday in his favor because his testimony was not available to review.

It is not known when the new trial will begin.

Both the original trial recording at the Adair County Courthouse and a copy sent digitally to Jefferson City just hours after the trial feature the currently unexplained audio problem.

The silence starts when Barber’s examination began. Audio returns in the middle of a sentence spoken by Adair County Prosecuting Attorney Matt Wilson during Barber’s cross-examination.

Also present at one point of the recorded silence is country music from an unidentified radio station.

Decker’s report of the recording’s content is in contrast to the Western District Court of Appeals ruling issued Tuesday. In that document, the judges, who reversed Barber’s conviction and ordered a new trial, pointed fingers at Adair County court personnel, seeming to place them at fault for the error.

“Somehow the machine that recorded the trial for transcription was not turned on during most of Barber’s testimony,” the filing read.

Decker said all indications are the machine was turned on, though there is no explanation for why the recording failed during those moments of the trial.

“This particular case, I still don’t feel like I have a good, hard answer to what the problem was. I think there is a lot of finger pointing and I don’t have any problem accepting responsibility that there was not a complete transcript made. Anything that happens in this office is and will be my responsibility and I’m happy to accept the blame for that,” Decker said.

Decker said in her 22 years at the courthouse there have been no other problems with the recordings, either with the former tape system or the current digital system.

Decker would not speculate on whether the recording could have been tampered with.

“I would have no knowledge of that. I wouldn’t want to say that. I’m a little concerned that there was a radio station being picked up on the recording, which has never happened before or since, but it might have been one of those unexplained occurrences,” she said.

Page 2 of 3 -

In a statement Wilson issued Wednesday, the prosecutor lamented the fact a court reporter was not used due to budget constraints.

Decker elaborated on that Thursday, saying while circuit judges are assigned full-time court reporters for their proceedings, the state budget does not allow for court reporters at proceedings handled by associate circuit judges.

The Barber trial was presided over by Associate Circuit Judge Karl DeMarce.

In place of a court reporter, courtrooms across Missouri use a state required digital recording system for associate court proceedings.

Decker said those recordings as well as all court business are saved to a secure local hard drive and also transmitted digitally to a backup server in Jefferson City each day around 2 a.m.

Nothing was done with the Barber case recordings until Barber’s attorney J.R. Hobbs filed a request of appeal, in which he also requested a copy of the trial transcript.

When that request was made and approved, several months after the trial, Decker said she made a CD copy of the recording and sent it to the Office of State Courts Administrator in Jefferson City, where it was to be transcribed.

The OSCA notified Decker there was the missing audio segment and also country music on the recording. That was her first indication of a problem.

“I couldn’t believe it when I got this email,” she said.

She verified the problems on the original copy at the Adair County Courthouse, and confirmed the copy in Jefferson City contained the same strange errors.

Decker said she contacted tech experts at OCSA and requested they examine the local hard drive, but was told because more than 60 days had elapsed since the recording they would not be able to make a determination as to what caused the error.

A phone message left with OCSA was not immediately returned.

Decker then contacted the agency that services the computer itself and had the unit examined. That individual told Decker he found nothing wrong and believed the problem was “clerk error.” He was not able to explain the country music.

But all indications are the unit was activated and court personnel had no reason to believe there was a problem. Decker said the record shows the clerk operating the machine was making docket entries - noting when an attorney began questioning a witness, court rulings, etc. - during Barber’s testimony.

“Part of my being a little upset is one of the comments from a judge, something about a clerk not turning on a switch. That clearly did not happen,” Decker said. “There was much more to it than that. We would have taken responsibility, and if a clerk has simply not turned on a switch I think she would have been aware to stop the judge at the proceedings and it could have been corrected at that time.”

Page 3 of 3 -

Decker said the clerk running the computer that day has nearly 30 years of experience. No action was taken against the clerk, who Decker refused to identify.

“I have every confidence that she did everything that was needed to do,” Decker said.

Decker said since learning of the problems with the Barber recording she has considered investing in a backup recording system for the courthouse, calling the current set up a “ticking time bomb.”

She was not aware of any further investigative methods that could or would be pursued.